Part of a vanguard of Spanish talent claiming success at home and in Hollywood, Penélope Cruz is one of the best known European stars today. Focusing on Cruz's key films and their surrounding discourse, Ann Davies charts the development of Cruz's star persona both at home and abroad and the questions, difficulties and pleasures it inspires.

Ann Davies is Chair of Spanish and Latin American Studies at the University of Stirling, Scotland, UK. She is the author of various books and articles on contemporary Spanish cinema and Spanish horror cinema, most recently Spanish Spaces: Landscape, Space and Place in Contemporary Spanish Culture (2012). She is also the editor of Spain on Screen: Developments in Contemporary Spanish Cinema (2012), Penélope Cruz (2014), and with Deborah Shaw and Dolores Tierney, co-edited The Transnational Fantasies of Guillermo del Toro (2014).

Acknowledgments.- Introduction.- 1. Performing Youth.- 2. Performing Nation.- 3. Performing Otherness
.- 4. Performing Performance.- Conclusion.- Notes.- Bibliography.- Filmography.- Index.